Микки Спиллейн - The Long Wait

I said to hell with it and started the car up again. If they saw me they could chase me. Just to keep luck on my side I didn’t turn the lights on until I was all the way down the block and heading back toward the city.

Nobody saw me. They were all too busy looking the other way.

The Circus Bar was my first stop. I didn’t see Logan’s car around anywhere so I looked around inside. When I didn’t see him anyplace I cornered the bartender. “You see Logan tonight?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. Said he was going on a bat, only his office called and he had to stay sober to see a couple of men.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Gosh, pal, I wouldn’t know where any of these joes go. One minute they’re here an’ the next they’re tearing around the city. You know reporters.”

I said I knew and let him get back to work. I did better on the phone. The city editor told me that a couple of insurance investigators had wanted to see him and had left their phone number for Logan to call so he probably had met them.

After I thought it over a minute I thumbed through the directory until I found Gardiner, Havis, called his number and got the housekeeper. She sounded curt and was starting to tell me that Mr. Gardiner wasn’t in to anyone at this hour, but I heard the echo of footsteps and Gardiner himself telling her that he’d take it, then his voice said, “Gardiner speaking. What is it?”

“McBride, Mr. Gardiner.”

“Yes, Johnny.” He sounded annoyed at being called so late.

“I’ll only take a moment,” I said. “Look, Logan had to meet a couple of investigators tonight. Were they your men?”

“Why yes, as a matter of fact, they were. Both represent the National Bank Insurance Company. May I ask why you want to know?”

“Sure, I want to find Logan. I thought you might know where he is.”

“You might find him someplace in the newspaper office. The insurance men were looking for some recent pictures of Vera West to take back to New York for identification purposes. They thought the paper might be able to supply them.”

“Oh. Okay, thanks. I’ll shop around.”

I hung up and tried the paper again. This time I was connected with the file clerk in the morgue and a voice as old as parchment and just as crackly told me that yes, Logan had been m with a couple of men, yup, they did get some pictures, sure ’nuff Logan had left and said he was going to finish getting canned. And oh, yeah, he was so potted already he had a crying jag on.

I felt like telling the guy to go shoot himself. Crying jag hell. Logan was crying all right, but it wasn’t the whisky coming out. Try being in love with a dame while you’re working to get her hung. Just try it. That’s what Logan was doing.

When I backed out of the booth I was ready to give up and find a sack someplace. It had been another one of those nights with everything happening, yet meaning nothing and my head was starting to pound so much I couldn’t think straight. I was all set to leave when I saw the bartender waving at me and went over to see what he wanted.

“Damn near forgot,” he said. “Your name Johnny?”

I told him it was.

He slid an envelope across the bar at me. “Logan told me you might come in looking for him and to give you this.”

I picked up the envelope and slid my finger under the flap. “Before he left he gave you this?”

“Yeah, not five minutes before. Want a drink?”

“Beer.” I waited while he drew a tall one and carried it over to the table. I put the drink down in a hurry before I pulled the two sheets out of the envelope. Across the top of the first one was the notation: Harlan... name of several counties and cities in the U. S.: Harlan, Inc., manufacturers of electrical appliances. Harlan, paint supply house in Va. Harlan, stage name of actress copyrighted. George Harlan, holdup, murder, life sen. and escaped, captured, killed in attempted escape Alcatraz. Harlan, William, prominent South American financier. Harlan Gracie, worked con game. Convicted N. Y. 1940. This sounds interesting. See clipping.

Logan had stapled the news account to the sheet underscoring a couple of lines. The gist of it was that Harlan Gracie was suspected of being a partner to a con game in which prominent out-of-towners were fleeced. It was the usual thing, a dame and a small-town playboy shacked up in a hotel room with a blackmail aftermath. None of her victims stepped forward to accuse her, but it wasn’t necessary because she had talked too much and a smart D. A. got enough of a confession out of her to send her up a few years. The inquiring reporter who covered the affair added that the sum extracted from her victims was suspected to be considerably more than she let on and that she had worked with a confederate or two who steered the victims her way. However, this was not established at the trial.

The note that Logan had added stated that these were all the Harlans he could uncover, and if it was a place, the nearest Harlan was better than a thousand miles off, and if it was a person, Harlan Gracie was the only one with a criminal record. He said he’d try to get further details from a news source in New York by the name of Whitman and would let me know more about it when he saw me.

I looked the list over again, grinning at the copyrighted Harlan because she was the one Venus had told me about. At least my tall lovely wasn’t handing me any baloney. I folded the stuff back into the envelope, tucked it in my pocket and drained off the dregs of the beers. It was a whole hatful of Harlans, but I’d give every one to know who the hell it was who bothered letting me know about them in the first place.

I didn’t stick around the Circus Bar any longer than I had to. Logan was someplace getting tanked up and I wanted to get him while he was still able to do some good. He’d probably be sore as hell about my little fracas with the boys and if he was it was too bad.

By eleven-fifteen I had traced him through seven bars. In the first one there had been two men with him and they had talked awhile over a drink. The bartender saw them taking notes about something or other. Logan hadn’t seemed happy. In the next six he had been alone and from what I could gather he was pretty well in his cups and brooding hard.

There was one thing that seemed peculiar. None of the bars he had been at belonged to Servo’s Business Group. Maybe it was because he didn’t want a lot of noise and people intruding on his thoughts or maybe it was something else again. At least the bars were still fairly empty with the bartenders standing around ready to pick up the late trade getting squeezed out of the places with the wheels and dice tables. The last bar was a ratty place on a side street called The Last Resort. The bartender said he had been there for about ten minutes, talked to a couple of hustlers, made a phone call, had a few more drinks and left. Wherever Logan went from there he didn’t know and couldn’t even guess.

That’s when I gave up. Logan could wait. Let the guy enjoy his drink and maybe he’d feel better tomorrow. I told the bartender to make me up a whisky and ginger and sat down to watch a redhead operate on a reluctant prospect.

She was going good then all of a sudden she stopped and moved over a seat. The bartender looked at the door and scowled a little bit, automatically reaching for the Scotch bottle on the back bar.

The guy who came in was middle-aged, lanky and in plain clothes, but he had might as well been wearing a sign around his neck that read COP. He said, “No drink, Barney,” and pulled a photo out of his pocket and slid it across the bar. “Ever see him before?”

The bartender studied the picture, read the caption underneath, then shook his head.

“Sure?”

“Positive.”